Unsurprised

One of the things I valued as a talk radio programmer was unpredictability. Sure, hosts could be generally characterized as conservative or liberal or libertarian or whatever, but the really good ones would chart their own courses. You wouldn't know for sure what they thought about every issue and every news story. Once in a while, they'd surprise you with a take that came from left field. And always, those hosts saw their jobs as to entertain and to take the side of the listener, the "little guy." Whomever was in power was to be held accountable, regardless of party.

At some point, that philosophy went away. No, it wasn't the elimination of the Fairness Doctrine -- I'm talking about more recent times than that. It was about the individual host, the feeling that you wanted to hear that host talk about what's going on even if you usually disagreed with him or her. Honesty went a long way; You could count on them to "call it as they see it," even if their usually sacred cows would take a hit in the process.

No more. Now, you don't have to listen to talk radio to know what they're saying.

Friday morning, I did my occasional listening tour of talk radio stations across the country, and I wondered, with the biggest stories right there on video or Twitter and hard to dispute, would the hosts labor to find ways to defend the indefensible or would they acknowledge what the world could plainly see and, for once, admit the obvious? If I could have bet the former, I would have, and I'd have done pretty well. Talk radio hosts were twisting into knots trying to come up with ways to tell listeners that what they saw is not what they saw at all but proved conclusively that... well, I'm not sure, but logic and facts were in scant supply. The hosts were playing to their audience, and I suppose that makes sense on a purely business level.

But does it? Because the more you double and triple down on something, the narrower your audience gets. You're holding onto that P1 bunch for dear life, but the casual listener, the ones who aren't all-in, are going to notice that you're being predictably contrary in the face of all evidence. They're the independent voters in your radio ratings election. Maybe it's a mistake to care about them, but here's a thought: Will those P1s really quit you if you stray from the official line on anything? They may SAY they will, but will they? Or will they still listen anyway because their ire is more bluster than commitment? And how many other listeners are you blowing off because you look at a TV news reporter and crew being arrested live on camera and, as I heard one host say Friday morning, you claim that the police were actually merely protecting them from possible violence by moving them away? Can your listeners trust your independence and opinions, or are you just giving them what you think they want (and what they can get, incidentally, from their social media bubbles)?

I don't know that we can turn back now. Talk radio has superserved the core audience for so long now that those independents stopped listening years ago. They may be lost to public radio, podcasts, sports radio, or just not listening to talk because they don't want the additional stress in their lives. There's also the "more of what they came for" philosophy, the idea that you don't go to McDonald's for sushi and you don't go to talk radio for disparate opinions, you come for the comfort of familiarity. But talk radio isn't McDonald's, and even if it is, there's the issue of whether you really want to bear the legacy of being on Walter Headley's side of history. (Google it.) I guess I'm just asking for honesty, and if that's also asking to be surprised, it says volumes about what's happened to talk radio. We can all do better.

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And now, I have to segue into an awkward plug for Talk Topics, the show prep column at All Access News-Talk-Sports, which you can find by clicking here and/or following the Talk Topics Twitter feed at @talktopics with every story individually linked to the appropriate item. And while you're checking that out, take a break and visit "10 Questions With..." Billy Donnelly, whose career has taken some interesting turns from radio to movie criticism to podcasting and now the host of "Getting Old Quickly," a podcast offering advice on how to cope with life, something we can all use at the moment.

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In case you feel like the world has completely spun off its axis, you are not alone, because it has. Seems like a good time to shut it down for the weekend. Maybe June will be better for everyone.

Perry Michael Simon
Vice President/Editor, News-Talk-Sports and Podcast
AllAccess.com
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